Proponents of the Electronic
Product Code (ePC) unique numbering system want to put a tag on every object
in the world, writes Sean Nicholls.

Before too long, everything
you buy - from the shirt on your back to a can of baked beans - could come embedded
with its own tiny electronic tag - a kind of tiny bar code. You won't even know
it's there, but guess what? The manufacturer will ...

By transmitting its presence
to sensors inside factories, warehouses, shops and your home, an ePC will let
manufacturers track every one of their products from the factory to the shelf
and finally, in the case of the shirt, to your back.

All you have to do is agree
to go along for the ride by installing the sensor that will register the ePC
signal in the first place.

That doesn't mollify privacy
groups. Worst case scenario: surveillance marketing, whereby companies know
exactly where and how you're using every one of their products; put that information
together into a consumer profile and it's a marketer's dream.

ePC isn't here yet but it's
not all that far off: it's at the heart of a new electronic product tracking
technology called Auto-ID. Taking a keen interest in its development are companies
that probably produce a significant proportion of the goods you use today: they
include Philip Morris, Proctor and Gamble, Gillette, Philips, Unilever, Tesco,
NCR, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Johnson and Johnson, AC Neilsen and Pfizer.

Auto-ID, currently being
developed at the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in
conjunction with those sponsor companies, relies on �smart tags' that use Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID), a wireless technology which has been around
for a while now. Those security tags you find slipped into novels at book stores
are a common example of RFID.

RFID has major advantages
over traditional bar coding: it's more durable, it can be read over relatively
long distances (up to three metres) and it can store large amounts of data.

A similar breakthrough RFIDbased
technology was announced by Hitachi early last year. Called the mu-chip (as
in micro chip), it's tiny (0.4 millimetres square) already costs just a few
cents to make and is easily incorporated into just about any product you care
to name, including paper.

By running an ePC past the
sensor, you'll be able to call up detailed product information quickly and easily
(the sensor connects to the Net for you); products could talk to each other,
one understanding how to cook another, for example; product recalls are quick
and targeted; you will never have to wait in a shop queue again.

Privacy concerns are brushed
aside as unwarranted: the types of tags embedded in everyday objects won't transmit
longdistance and, in any case, consumers will have to agree first before products
could be tracked into their homes or on the street.

But privacy groups are already
asking questions about what happens further on. They say if these devices can
already be incorporated into products, who knows how they could be used in future?

Auto-ID began its first
field tests in the US in October. The trials will run for nine months.

The company doesn't expect
the technology to make an appearance until at least 2003-4. Hitachi says the
mu-chip will be ready to go this year.